A Literary Companion to Xiao Hai’s Adrift in the South

In the poet Xiao Hai's memoir, Adrift in the South, Picun Village as he describes it is like a fairytale land, and its destruction, heartbreaking. On the positive side, a lot of literature did come out of it and continues to, although much of it is yet to be translated into English. The movement itself has been called simply “Worker’s Literature” 打工文學. Throughout his work, the author mentions many of the other writers who attended the same workshops with him. Many of them have published several works to great public recognition and acclaim. I wanted to gather some of the books that Xiao Hai referenced:

Further Reading

• 小海 Xiao Hai (poet, migrant factory worker): Sister (translated by students at University of Leeds)

  • Sisyphus on the Wenyu River 溫榆河上的西西弗斯

• 範雨素 Fan Yusu (writer, migrant laborer, single mother): I am Fan Yusu (full English translation)

  • Reunion After a Long Separation (Chinese original)

• 袁凌 Yuan Ling (journalist, volunteer teacher): My Brothers and Sisters in Picun 我的皮村兄妹

• 李文麗 Li Wenli (writer, artist, migrant worker), I Clean Homes in Beijing 我在北京做家政

• 郭福來 Guo Fulai (construction worker from Hebei)

  • His work, along with others in the Picun Literature Group, is available in A Constellation of Laborers (Chinese original)

• 許立志 Xu Lizhi (worker-poet, Foxconn worker who ended his life at 24 years old), A Screw Fell to the Ground and other Poems

• 秦曉宇 Qin Xiaoyu (documentary filmmaker), The Verse of Us 我的詩篇

• 陳年喜 Chen Nianxi (poet, mine laborer)

  • 炸裂志 Records of Explosions

    • English translation selection

  • 陳年喜的詩 Chen Nianxi's Poems

  • 活著就是沖天一喊 To Live is to Cry Out to the Sky

• 海子 Hai Zi (pen name of Zha Haisheng, an influential poet of the 1980s). A selection of his works were translated into English and published in a bilingual collection